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(Re) Building the better cb750 airbox....maybe...

17K views 18 replies 11 participants last post by  seanbarney41 
#1 ·
There is a lot of talk on this site about pods, and air boxes and air flow and such, and since most of it seems to come from newbies who maybe haven't seen stuff like this I thought it might be nice to talk about something other than pods and carb tuning and blah, blah, blah.

So this is a Henry Abe AirBox:
Auto part Knockout punch Bumper


Actually it is a bit of a misnomer because Henry Abe wasn't the only company to make them, Santee, Ness, AEE, all offered similar products and designs. The basic premise was to have something cooler looking than an airbox but worked better than a generic pod filter.

Over the years I have collected a few of these where I have found them and decided to rebuild one for use on the CB750F I have a thread about, and also another to sell. But I thought it might be good to go over what makes these tick.



So here you see the basics. On the far right is an assembled heavily road worn cb750 unit. Next to that are the airbox specific rubbers, the carb side mounting plate, the inner filter mesh, the outer filter mesh, followed by the outward facing plate. Below you see the Z bracket that is used to keep the filter from collapsing under vacucum and one of the two bolts that holds the unit together. Above is a piece of Unifilter foam, to the far left is a stock cb750 intake rubber, and in the tray is all the hardware I am too lazy to spread out like the clamps and the other body bolt.

Please forgive this pic as I didn't realize the focus was misadjusted until I uploaded it this morning, I'll fix it at some point:

On the left is a stock cb750 intake rubber, on the right is the Henry Abe airbox rubber. A couple things to note:
1) the cb750 one is much longer and has a short external mounting flange followed by a large amount of the velocity stack inside the airbox. Conversely the henry abe specific one has a long external mounting flange but is much shorter overall in height. Very little of the stack is in the airbox to allow for room to suck in air.
2) both have a velocity stack shape but the HA's rubber has a more open bellmouth with a longer taper.
3) the flange where it goes into the body of the filter is slightly bigger. I can from experience tell you that you can use a stock cb750 rubber in an HA airbox but you need to seal the flange with some silicone sealant to prevent air leaks, and you will have to cut down the velocity stack portion as it is almost up against the inside of the front plate.

The original filter material was likely a foam of some type and sheet Uni Filter foam is easy and cheap to come by. Here I cut the filter sheet into strips for installation:

This filter will have to be oiled. perioically and replaced when it becomes brittle.

not all the rubbers are in good shape:

these aren't reproduced so you have to use what you can. I find that black liquid electrical tape helps seal up any missing chunks and some regular black electrical tape around the outside helps seal it all together. Since these do not have to pass fuel and will mostly sit on the outside of the carb I am not concerned about any repairs. any raised dried liquid tape can be trimmed with a razor blade.

Here is a close up of the actual breathable outside element:

now I know what you are thinking - those holes look kinda small. I think it too. The reality is that this piece is structural to the airbox in that the two outer plates clamp firmly against it. You can drill these but I caution you that if you drill too big you can weaken the plate and the airbox will crush in on itself when you go to tighten it up. There are some other tricks you can do and we will talk about them in part 2: modifying.

Installing the filter:
you take the two strips of foam you cut and lay them inside the outer element. Make sure they are well oiled as per UNI's instructions.

then you lay the inside reinforcement element so that your engine does not suck in a bunch of foam.

To be continued.....
 
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#3 ·
Hey Geeto - send your best Abe rubber to these guys to reproduce:

CSM Restoration Parts

They repro'd the old T500 oil dams and the early T500 airbox boots that would be unobtainuim otherwise.
Good to know, but I don't know if there is a market for it. Most of these Airboxes sell for between $60-200 depending on condition and there are quite a few out there. It's a sandwich design and anybody with the ability to build a birdhouse can make a similar one out of a K&N oval filter and the stock intake rubbers.
 
#6 · (Edited)
I know you know your way around these things, but I feel I need to pontificate a little on the subject…..I can't remember if there is any extra space on those once they are installed on the M/C, but if there is any extra room (probably not much), I would be inclined to make up a wider section of mesh to allow for use of the stock Honda stacks if possible. Like I say, I don't recall if it's possible on those, but I do remember some chrome air boxes (and they may have only been imported into Canada from Taiwan) where you could toss the stacks that came with it and there was sufficient room to use the Honda ones and they would fit quite well. Most times when the air box was installed they were also doing pipes. I do recall the first one that landed in my stall back in 1977. The pipes and air box had been installed by the customer and it was running like a sack of shit. It was a nightmare to jet the thing and at first it felt like I was chasing moonbeams. It was only after sitting and staring at the air boxes that I decided to switch the stacks and give it a try. At the time, I had some understanding of the theory surrounding intake tract length , but I was stunned by the difference it made. All of the aerodynamic fungus (as I prefer to cal it) caused by the aftermarket air box was fucking up the flow past the jets which made jet changes a waste of time.

I don't recall the brand of air box , but it looked more like a mailbox with louvers stamped in it.
 
#7 ·
It's funny you mention it, because the assembled one I have in my pics actually has the stock cb750 intake rubbers in it. When assembled there is maybe 1/4" between the bellmouth and the back of the plate which isn't that great for flow.

There were a lot of sandwich style ones made, and of varying quality. I have a box for a kz900 also and the v-stacks for that one are vastly different than the honda ones - they are almost flush on the inside.

To be honest, construction of a sandwich style box using the honda parts is so simple I might tackle it for part III of this thread. I have wanted to make one out of lexan and a K&N filter for years just because I think a clear one would be cool looking. If you have access to a drill press, a hacksaw, and a tape measure and the K&N catalog you can make your own.

Keep in mind, airfilters of this type are not a performance enhancement. They do not have plenums full of free air and are not Helmholtz resonators. what they are is a fashion accessory for a stock bike that takes some of the difficulty in tuning a stock engine for pod filters by keeping the velocity stacks and providing slightly less turbulent air behind the filter. I know we can't stop these moron newbies from thinking they need to throw away their stock airboxes, but maybe we can provide an alternative so we don't have to see so many idiots buying emgo pods and then wondering why their bike runs like shit.
 
#9 ·
Lets pick up where we left off:

The UNI filter needs oil in order to work properly. I bought this stuff because it was the right oil and cheap ($15), but it is very thick and hard to work with due to how slow it moves and how difficult it is to get off your hands once on. I recommend gloves for handling this stuff:



I don't have pics of me oiling it because I didn't want to touch the camera but here is the assembled oiled filter and a pic of when it was dry showing how stuff goes together:




It is imperative that you squeeze all the excess oil out of this foam for two reasons: 1) it will breathe better, 2) it makes the process less messy going forward.


So let's talk about the rubbers. while all still pliable many of the carb side ones were starting to show cracks. I chose to wrap the parts that attach to the carbs with high temp electrical tape so as to prevent air leaks and also hold the rubbers together when the clamps tighten on them. I could have used liquid electrical tape as well but I thought that was overkill.







and here we are with 4 rubbers ready to go into the airbox backing plate:
 
#10 ·
Fitting the rubbers....

You might think that because the engine side is so narrow and the V stack side is so wide that these rubbers are best suited to press in from behind the plate, engine side first. Well the rubber there is thick and not so pliable where as the stack itself is very thin and can be folded easily.



it is really easy to get the stack portion in, but harder to get it to sit inside the flange. I was tempted to use a metal tool to work it in but resisted and with a few swear words managed to get it to sit flush:







This is one area where the stock cb750 airbox rubbers struggle with since the hole they were made for is smaller. Once in they tend to not seal and shift about causing air leaks. Were I to use a stock cb750 rubber I would have to use some sort of sealant.

Here is the seated rubber inside the partially assembled box for height reference:




and here is a stock cb750 airbox rubber partially seated:


Truth is it still has another 1/2 inch to go but I didn't feel like seating it only to remove it again (that's it on the right):


You can see how much less room there is as compared to the stock abe box v-stack:


You could use the stock rubber but you would have to widen the unit so it could have room to pull air:


Anyway, I repeated fitting the HA rubbers untill all installed:




If you are wondering why these work at all it is the shape. The Stock cb750 rubber has a more gradual taper and is longer overall, but the HA rubber has a more aggressive taper and transfers the length to outside the box to move it further away from the engine into an area of cooler air. You do loose the helmholtz effect the plenum affords you but not to such a degree as pod filters would. Still, these stacks are a better shape than the K&N pods and don't have a restriction ring like the emgos. Although I have no proof I am less inclined to believe you would lose HP on a stock cb750 like you would with a pod filter, but you are probably sacrificing some part throttle smoothness. From past experience these are less hard to tune than pods.

test fitting the unit:
 
#11 ·
because there is a wire mesh holding the filter in place there is a Z bar that must be installed between the 2&3 openings to prevent the engine vacuum from pulling the pliable mesh inward and clogging the carbs:


it does restrict some of the air holes but win some, loose some. It needs to be centrally mounted to be effective. Most of the time when you buy these the bar is rattling around loose inside because the filter is long gone and nothing is holding it in place, but with a fresh oiled filter it is in tight:



The front plate had some staining on it, otherwise the chrome was perfect. I decided to dress it up with some plastidip because if I ever wanted to remove it I could and the chrome underneath would be great (except for the staining):







The mounting screw is kind of interesting. The long philips screw goes in from the carb side.....


and then a nut goes inside to seat against the back plate. This is so you can service the unit while it is mounted to the bike. Anybody who has had to change a filter on a cb750 can tell you what a pain in the ass job it is so this is far and away the best advantage of the filter system:




Interesting thing about the top is that it is sandwiched between two nuts as well and the exterior nut is an acorn nut. So you have to assemble the unit....



mark the height the lid sits at...



and then install the backside nut so as to allow the right amount of threads to stick through:


then the acorn screws on to that protruding bit and tightens against the pal nut on the other side. Interesting note, my KZ box has a washer on the outside, but none of my cb750 or 550 boxes do. I can't tell if this is just a commonly lost item or maybe the screw they chose was too short to accommodate.



double checking final assembly. You'll notice that the wire mesh is slightly warped, I think this is caused by the uni filter material being slightly too thick for this use.





And here is the finished box:








I will admit that there is some final clean up to do on this, esp the hardware, but that is because in part two I am going to take this apart again and show you some mod tricks to get more air inside of it. Maybe I'll even source and replace some of the hardware with stainless.
 
#12 · (Edited)
Would it suck too much air if you replaced the stamped hole side piece with one made from SS wire mesh? if the bolts and nuts are on properly there is no issue of crushing the sides. Making your own side this way the thickness can be adjusted for more or less air.
 
#14 ·
Would it suck too much air if you replaced the stamped hole side piece with one made from SS wire mesh? if the bolts and nuts are on properly there is no issue of crushing the sides. Making your own side this way the thickness can readjusted for more or less air.
We are going to cover all of this in part 2.
 
#17 ·
I really wanna do this on my 750c. But not until those CV carbs are gone. (never) great writeup on a good budget upgrade.
 
#19 ·
I had one of these so decided to try it on a whim.
DSCN0687 by Sean Barney, on Flickr
One size up on main jets and stopped down the air screws a bit and it ran pretty good. Low/part throttle response was actually better than a typical stock cb750 with worn out needles and needle jets. I think the high rpm range suffered just a bit though, but I traded the bike, breadbox and all, before I had a chance to try it with the stock airbox.

I have one for my KZ1000, and don't yet have a stock airbox, so I will probably try the breadbox on that too.
 
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